Surgical and non-surgical procedures for improving appearance have increased in prevalence as populations age and gain weight. Liposuction is a popular cosmetic surgery procedure and involves the surgical removal of fat deposits using suction and optionally assisted by solutions to assist in fat removal. Liposuction is a surgical procedure that removes fat through an incision in the skin through which a cannula is inserted. The cannula is connected to a suction source and the unwanted fat is aspirated through the cannula and discarded. Liposuction is performed under general or local anesthesia, depending on the amount and location of the fat to be removed. However, liposuction and other surgical methods of fat removal are associated with significant adverse events including temporary bruising, swelling, numbness, soreness and burning sensation, risk of infection, pigmentation changes, the formation of fat clots or blood clots which can migrate to the lungs and cause death, excessive fluid loss, which can lead to shock or fluid accumulation that must be drained, friction burns or other damage to the skin or nerves or perforation injury to the vital organs. Additionally, liposuction requires a recovery time of one to two weeks wherein the patient cannot work or perform certain daily activities. Moreover, because surgical procedures such as liposuction require local and occasionally general anesthesia, significant anesthesia-related risks are associated with surgical fat removal (including, e.g., loose and flabby skin) Furthermore, in certain situations liposuction and other drastic weight loss methods can be life threatening to the patient.
Accumulation of fat stores can occur unevenly in the body. For example, some persons may accumulate fat predominantly in the abdominal cavity while others predominately in the subcutaneous tissue. Gender differences may also be apparent with women accumulating fat in the thighs and lateral buttocks and males in the waist. Women may accumulate fatty deposits of the thighs, which have a rumpled or “peau-de-orange” appearance, resulting in a condition referred to as cellulite. Cellulite may be related to skin architecture which allows subdermal fat herniation, sometimes referred to as adipose papillae. Other factors that may be related to cellulite include altered and/or reduced connective tissue septae, vascular and lymph changes that lead to fluid accumulation, and inflammation. Fat tissue may also accumulate in the form of a fibrous fatty deposit known as a lipoma. Lipomas are tumors of fatty tissues, generally benign. If malignant, they are known as liposarcomas. Benign lipomas contain normal fat that is encapsulated within a fibrous sphere, thus often compressing the fat and causing it to feel more firm than surrounding fat. Many lipomas are asymptomatic and are removed for non-medical reasons. However, a significant number of them cause the patient pain or discomfort and they interfere with normal activity.